The Real Reason You’re Tired – You Just Won’t Admit It

Could you have used an extra 30 minutes of sleep this morning? Do you find your office chair just too uncomfortable to nap in? Have you ever fallen asleep on a conference call? Then you are one of the many sleep deprived Americans that are currently steering the economic future of our nation. The rest of you sleep deprived Americans are attempting to steer an automobile and that's even worse.

Why don't we sleep? It's not like we don't want to go to sleep. You might think the culprit is not our busy lifestyle. The major culprit according to the National Sleep Foundation is all of those devices that were invented to save us time and give us more time for leisure. We can blame our sleep deprivation on technology.

In particular you can blame the smartphone. Improvements in hand held technology have allowed us to bring the world to bed with us. Most of us do bring the world to the bed with us and that's why we don't sleep. Even if you aren't responding to a late night text message the fact that you've stimulated your brain with messages, emails, and funny videos is why you cant' shut it down for the night.

Now the smartphone isn't all to blame for the midday yawning and weaving across traffic everyday. The television in the bedroom is another reason we can't nod off. It's not so much the stimulating programming as it is the light source. This light messes with our body's natural sleep rhythm. That makes sleeping even more difficult.

If you're looking for a better night's sleep experts suggest putting down or turning off the technology at least an hour before bedtime. Or you can do what most of us do, medicate ourselves until we are in a chemically induced state of unconsciousness or just wake up grouchy the following day.